


Willow Bark

by fair_veronian



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Episode Fix-It: s04e16 The Waters of Mars, Gen, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 06:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12881781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fair_veronian/pseuds/fair_veronian
Summary: After burying her husband, the last of her family, Donna just wants to sleep. Instead she wakes up.





	Willow Bark

Chiswick, London, England, Earth, the Sol System, August 2037. 

Donna’s head was throbbing, her eyes were red and her nose was stuffy from hours of tears. She allowed herself a moment to wish for strong arms to hold her before shaking off that notion and settling back into her grief. The house was quiet now, the subdued visitors from the last few hours finally accepting her reassurances and heading back to their own families. Most of them grateful to be able to shut out the reality of her loss in favour of avoidance and denial. 

Humanity, she scoffed internally, death comes to us all and yet each one of us is surprised by it’s arrival. Donna made her way around the house slowly, checking the windows and doors, putting the last of the left overs in the fridge and turning out the lights before heading to her bedroom to finally put this day behind her. She winced at both the bright bathroom light and her reflection in the mirror above her vanity unit. Retrieving two aspirin from the cabinet and washing them down with water scooped directly from the tap she finished her ablutions and laid down on her large, empty bed.

...............7 hours later...................

Weak sunlight was trying to pierce the gloom of the comfortable room, the lone figure lying on the bed was motionless. No rhythmical rise of the chest to identify breath, no soft sussurations to signify dreaming. The only indication that something was happening was the rising temperature surrounding the bed. The heat rose and was joined by light, wrapping itself around the figure and cocooning it as a luminescent chrysalis. The light swirled and faded and the figure sat upright, gasping for breath and clutching their chest. If anyone had been there to witness they would have heard a soft, sorrowful exclamation from the figure. 

“Oh Spaceman. What did you do?”

...............2.5 miles west, November 2059..................

As she reluctantly materialised, worrying for her thief a new song broke through her consciousness and her heart soared in joyus understanding. She impatiently acquiesced to his requests but as soon as he was done she returned to the brilliant new song, not waiting for him to choose or understand. 

..............Same.................

Landing on the snow covered street in the lamplight the Doctor felt the strands of time bending to his will. He squared his shoulders and prepared to enlighten these humans on just why they should be grateful for his intervention. A furious voice in the void of his mind startled him before he could open the TARDIS doors. Emotions he had long buried returned and guilt suffused him as the voice berated his actions. Turning to his passengers he swallowed past the lump forming in his throat, the enormity and foolishness of his actions hitting hard, being forced to the forefront of his thoughts by the familiar voice scolding him in a not so familiar way. He didn’t think he’d ever heard her sound so angry or disappointed in him, not even at Pompeii. 

He made his way back to the console and took them back into the vortex before he made a serious mistake. He switched tracks and rambled distractedly about humanity’s reach, their potential and undying optimism. The ability to persevere against tragedy, the unquenchable spirit. His clever passengers cut him off and he spent the next moments uncomfortably explaining how he’d saved them from their deaths but couldn’t let them go home. Between the tears and recriminations there was gratitude and pragmatism. The voice in his mind had calmed and was offering murmured reassurance even as he dropped off three traumatised humans in a far flung colony somewhere in the 33rd century. 

...............2.5 miles east, 4 hours or 5 minutes later................

He was uncharacteristically calm as she brought them to the quiet room, the lone figure raised a questioning brow and gentle hand to his cheek as he stood in the brightly backlit doorway. Tears poured unchecked down his face even as his smile grew wider. Words, in answer, escaped his lips without censure.

“I missed you, Earthgirl”.


End file.
